Unaccented and Final-Accented Classes in Lexical Pitch Accent Languages: A Case Study of Gyeongsang Korean

Minamida, Hitomi

doi:10.30961/lr.2023.59.3.253

Lang. Res. 59(3):253-270

pISSN: 0254-4474, eISSN: 2586-7113

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30961/lr.2023.59.3.253

Article

Unaccented and Final-Accented Classes in Lexical Pitch Accent Languages: A Case Study of Gyeongsang Korean

Hitomi Minamida ¹ ^, ^†

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹University of Maryland, College Park

^†Corresponding Author: Lecturer School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures University of Maryland, College Park 3215 Jimenez Hall, College Park, MD 20742 USA E-mail: minamida@umd.edu

ⓒ Copyright 2023 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Oct 31, 2023 ; Revised: Dec 13, 2023 ; Accepted: Dec 20, 2023

Published Online: Dec 31, 2023

ABSTRACT

A number of researchers (Kenstowicz & Sohn, 1997; Jun et al., 2006, among others) have claimed that the pitch accent systems of Gyeongsang Korean (specifically North Gyeongsang Korean and South Gyeongsang Korean) lack an unaccented class and instead have a final-accented class. This claim contradicts recent work on the role of accentedness in wh-prosody in Gyeongsang Korean (Hwang 2011) and earlier research on Gyeongsang lexical pitch accent (Ramsey 1978). In this study, I provide additional prosodic evidence to support the claim that Gyeongsang Korean has an unaccented class. I also argue that a final-accented class in Gyeongsang Korean exists, but it is limited to loanwords. This study demonstrates the importance of using more than one diagnostic to identify accent classes in lexical pitch accent languages.

Keywords: Gyeongsang Korean; lexical pitch accent; unaccentedness; loanword phonology

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